Posted on 07/22/2010 12:31:24 PM PDT by Willie Green
Want to create billions of dollars in new business and thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of new jobs? Build high-speed rail in your region.
Since President Obama announced earlier this year that the federal government was investing $8 billion in high-speed rail projects across the country, I have seen people asking repeatedly, "Is this really a good investment?" Or just claiming outright that it is not. If implemented badly, or only in disconnected pieces, high-speed rail could flop. But, if implemented as proposed, high-speed rail is a great investment, which is why so many people (especially experts in this field) are so enthusiastic about it. A recent report out by the U.S. Conference of Mayors confirms this claim and gives right to that enthusiasm.
The report, The Economic Impacts of High-Speed Rail on Cities and their Metropolitan Regions, which examined four hub cities -- Los Angeles, Chicago, Orlando and Albany, N.Y. -- found that $19 billion in new business and 150,000 jobs would be created from high-speed rail projects in those regions.
Increasing tourism, giving businesses a wider pool of workers to choose from, and helping with the growth and development of technology clusters, these high-speed rail networks would create more benefits than costs.
"It is a game changer with how people envision the city; people see the city in new ways," Steve Fitzroy, director of operations for the Economic Development Research Group, the organization which conducted the study, told the New York Times.
Albany, for example, which is not that well-connected to New York City currently, would be "pulled into New York City's economic core." Albany would gain $2.5 billion in new business and 21,000 jobs if a proposed high-speed rail network connecting it with NYC, Syracuse, and Montreal gets implemented, according to the report.
In Florida, a high-speed rail network connecting Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and other areas in that region, would generate $2.9 billion per year in new business, $1.7 billion more per year in gross regional product, and an additional 27,500 jobs, the report found.
The results are similar in California, the Midwest, and other regions looking at high-speed rail. And they are comparable to results already seen in Europe and Asia after such networks were put into place there.
If high-speed rail keeps chugging along in the U.S., it looks like it will help our economy recover and grow considerably.
Man! The kenyan is really working overtime in destroying this country! There’s not that much stupidity left in him is there?
In Seattle, opponents of Light Rail have shown that they could buy every Light Rail passenger a brand new Toyota Prius every year for less money than they have spent on light rail.
Yeah, billions of taxpayer dollars. Wasn’t that the plan all along? Kind of like LBJs urban renewal plans built a Great New Society. Shifting productive dollars to unproductive enterprises doesn’t grow an economy, it distorts it. But that is Obamanomics in a nutshell. Dollars need to be funnelled to those areas that produce the most reliable voter turnout for Democrats. Hi Ho Silver, High speed rail away...
Could bring billions of dollars to cities.
Seems like it would be cheaper to build walls around them and let them starve.
Maybe what Detroit needs is high speed rail. You never know until you build. Just build the easy take-down model.
Of course Detroit could just dump their liberal masters.
Yeah. It would attract billions of TAX dollars.
FMCDH(BITS)
Same with Charlotte. Someone posted an article a few weeks ago that said it cost multiple times as much to build as was projected, which is typical of these socialist projects.
High speed rail in the USA = the terrorists’ ultimate wet-dream.
Alternatively, you could pay all the riders to stay home from work, and it would be cheaper.
Accurized headline.
Train junkies don't you just love them.
The cities have apparently given up on trying to produce revenue on their own. Why should they when they have all of us flyover country cattle to milk.
Actually, a high-speed rail is more of a Shelbyville deal....
I volunteer to ride NONE of those lines in return for say, $10,000 in cash from Zer0's stash.
Light Rail, Trains, Government Health Care, Cap and Tax, a couple thousand more Regulations on Business, Welfare for all, Unlimited Unemployment Benefits, Govt funded Solar Panels, Govt funded Windmills and shutting down all drilling in the Gulf and Alaska will bring BILLIONS of dollars to Cities as long as China keeps loaning us money (and promises to never call in the debt) and if we can get rid of that pesky ol Second Amendment...
I will say you are getting closer to your “Utopia” than I ever thought that I would have ever believed possible.
TT
Waste of taxpayer money. If, instead, the government was offering to work with a private enterprise to bring forward high speed rail in the United States, simply there to ensure that regulatory hurdles were cleared and to assist in mediating any disputes with local land owners, I think it’d be a great thing.
Instead, it’s another government run idiocracy which will waste even more taxpayer funds to transport people from a place they don’t want to leave to a destination they don’t want to go to.
If a private company planned out the MetroRail in Los Angeles, they’d go to the airport, not turn a half mile before and go down to Redondo Beach. They’d never have dug underground to go towards the La Brea Tar Pits but instead have incorporated shopping districts that would be compatible with the above ground rail lines. And they’d want liability limits attached to all of this, so they couldn’t get sued out of business by some jury who decides to ‘punish the evil corporation.’ Instead, local taxpayers are on the hook for millions of dollars in claims each year, ranging from illegal turns into the path of the train, to claims of harassment by other passengers.
I’m constantly amazed at the quality of drugs these people must be getting. No passenger rail project in the USA is actually making money today. If they were, then private enterprise would already be building them.
The mayors say that high speed rail would bring billions to the cities. But these billions come from the rape of the people and the mortgaging of our children’s futures just so the mayors can play with their choo choos.
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